January 2011

Candy Land was one of the board games Ethan played while we were in the States. At that time, he didn’t quite understand the whole works yet, but he certainly had fun with Venice and Aunty Van that time. I had wanted to buy that board game before we came back, but somehow procrastinated because I felt that the price was a little bit expensive.

However, when Pete came back from his recent trip and surprised the kids with the Candy Land board game, let’s just say I was just as ecstatic as the kids were. At only USD5, it was a great family game that we could all play together.

Ethan and Hannah loves Candy Land, and it’s a game where everyone is involved in it, as each player has a pawn to move. When asked what color pawn she wants, Hannah always replies, “Yellow!” Ethan will take the Blue pawn (because that’s his new favorite color, after previously being yellow and red), Mommy will take Red and Daddy Green.

It’s one of our afternoon activities together at home, and also sometimes we have a game of Candy Land before the kids say goodnight. Ethan says it’s his favorite game yet!

There’s no denying the joy that grandparents bring to a child’s life. It’s that wonderful, magical bond that will bring on that cheerful grin and adorable giggle. The beautiful thing about this bond is that it’s a reciprocal one.

Recently when their Daddy was away in the States on a business trip, Ethan and Hannah had the utmost privilege of having their maternal grandparents around. A few days before Ah Ma and Ah Kong were due to arrive from Ipoh, Ethan had already started his countdown and kept asking me every day how many more days to go before Ah Ma and Ah Kong were to arrive.

During that one week that Ah Ma and Ah Kong were here, Ethan and Hannah were showered with loads of gifts, attention and love. Now that Hannah is more vocal, she was also able to *demand* things, like what songs she wanted Ah Ma to sing to her and what pictures she wanted to be drawn.

Of course, now that Hannah can call “Ah Ma” and “Ah Kong” very very clearly, it makes things that much easier…surprisingly, the kids tend to behave a little bit *better* with Ah Ma and Ah Kong around too. (perhaps they bully me too much…SIGH)

Ethan will be chatting non-stop to both Ah Ma and Ah Kong from daylight to daybreak. He would wake up very early every morning, so early in fact, that he sometimes reached school before his teachers did! He would tell Ah Ma and Ah Kong all about his activities, all about his friends, and wow his grandparents about facts he learnt from Wikipedia (which I looked up for him)…like when he proudly told Ah Ma and Ah Kong that Jupiter has at least 63 moons and that Saturn has 62 moons.

Me? I’m just extremely thankful my parents were here with me to keep me company during Pete’s absence. It really meant a lot to me ! … plus my Dad helped out a lot on the spring cleaning and Mum cooked some delicious meals too… hehehe… Thanks Papa and Mama!

And after a week of quality time spent with gramps, Ethan and Hannah bade a fond farewell to Ah Ma and Ah Kong, but not before promising to see them again real soon during Chinese New Year!

Sometimes it IS rather easy to make kids happy. Mealtimes are great examples, and one of the easiest, fail-proof recipe I use for my kids is PASTA. My kids love pasta in any shape and size. The colorful varieties just add to the excitement of it all.

The beauty of this traditional favorite meal is, of course, its simplicity in preparation. I only need to stir-fry some onions, add some minced meat (if I’m more hardworking, I’ll make meatballs instead), then pour in a can of tomato purée, and then add enough pasta sauce. Then I’d ask the kids which kind of pasta they want. Giving them that choice makes it that much more fun

And although it can sometimes get a tad messy, we all enjoy the great taste and balanced meal (carbs, vegetables and protein all in one) and the fun that comes with it!

Finally, after weeks and months of collecting the Guardian Disney Cuties stickers, I made it to 60 and qualified for a free redemption of a Disney Cutie soft toy! Wheeeee!!!!!

I only had about 30+ stickers a few weeks ago, but when Ah Ma and Ah Kong came to visit from Ipoh, I managed to *earn* the rest of the stickers. Talk about working hard for them! Every time I did something good, like when I put away my toys after playing with them, or finished my lunch/dinner really quickly, Ah Ma would whip out her sticker collection and give me one sticker for each good thing I did. Sometimes I would try to negotiate with Ah Ma to get more stickers too…hehe…

Anyway, last week, Mommy brought me to our favorite Guardian store, and we exchanged the sticker card for Chip! I had already checked the box next to Chip on the redemption card and the lady in the store gave us Chip in a HUGE box! For now, I am sharing Chip with Hannah…but I do feel that Chip is lonely without a squirrel friend of his own.

Hannah and I are hoping to collect enough stickers to redeem Dale before the dateline. We currently have only TWO…So if you have any extras, please kindly pass them over, yeah?

For the past few weeks, Mommy has been diligently plonking herself in front of the television at certain times during the day, holding her camera in front of it, in the hope of recording a video with Ethan Koko’s face in it. Mommy said that Ethan Koko’s face appears on the Playhouse Disney Birthday Book for January, and what’s more it’s his 2nd time so far! Apparently he appeared on the birthday book last year too!

The thing is…even though we know he has been chosen, we do not know exactly when his picture will show up. So Mommy has to get ready the camera every time the Birthday Book comes on. And we have been told to try to keep as quiet as possible when that happens…

But you know me…I couldn’t help myself when I saw my brother’s face on TV. I mean, who wouldn’t be excited, right? Yes, that’s my voice you hear when Ethan Koko’s face appeared…and errr….I *thought* the other girl looked like me…heh heh…well, a girl can dream, can’t she?

And yeah, Mommy FINALLY managed to record the video…I think it had something to do with me sitting on her lap while she was recording it.

Have not weighed her since the last weigh-in in December, but she might have put on a little bit more weight now, so maybe 11.4 or 11.5 kilos.

Height

Slightly more than 82 cm

Teeth

15 teeth: 8 incisors (4 top and 4 bottom), with 4 pramolars appearing on the right side (top and bottom) and left side (top and bottom), also 2 canines starting to appear at the top jaw, and 1 canine on the bottom right.

Motor Skills

Hannah started lifting both feet from the floor and making small jumps a few days ago.

She loves playing with jigsaw puzzles and will attempt to complete them on her own.

Communication and Social Skills

Hannah definitely knows more than her expected 20 words for a typical 22-month old (Source). And she’s stringing words together to make requests and statements too. She can also answer simple questions, like when we ask her, “Where did Ethan go?”, she’ll say, “Ethan skool”; or “Where’s Daddy?”, she’s reply, “Daddy ofees!”

She is very musically minded, in that she is able to pick up the tune and certain words of a song, with ease. Just the other day, I started singing, “Jesus loves me, this I know” to her, and she managed to mimic some of the words and the tune almost immediately. When I showed her the actions for “God is so good”, she followed me almost immediately.

She is a pro at requesting for us to sing certain songs for her: “How I wonder” or “Star” refers to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (in fact she can sing this song almost entirely on her own now), “Baa Baa” is self-explanatory, and so is “E-I-E-I-O”. There was a time when we were in church and at the point when everyone was quiet, Hannah said, “E-I-E-I-O..quack quack here and quack quack there!” *faints*

Just like her brother is a drama king, she is a drama queen. Lately when we take her out, and if the sun hits any part of her body, she’ll scream, “HOT!”

She is very affectionate and shows affection readily, be it to her soft toys, or to close family and friends.

She’s also very stubborn and determined to do things herself. When we volunteer to help her by saying, “Let Mommy help?”, she’ll shake her head and say, “NOooooo!!! Hannah help!” She’s attempting to put her sandals on by herself and buckle up her safety belt by herself too.

Food and Feeding

Hannah continues to show that she loves food. And whenever she sees us eating something she has not seen before, she’ll say, “Try!”, meaning she would like to try it. At home, I allow her to experiment and feed herself with a spoon and bowl whenever I can.

Hannah is still breastfed and she still asks for “milk” especially at night. Sometimes when she asks for “milk”, I’ll tell her Mommy does not have any more milk. She’ll ignore me of course and insist there is “some more”.

To ease her bowel movement, Hannah is also on an occasional diet of prunes. She loves them, so I ain’t complaining! I’m also supplementing her diet with chewable chocolate-flavored Calcium & Magnesium, besides the regular Vitamin C.

Every holiday season is a perfect reason to stuff ourselves silly with food, no? Well, it’s a reasonable *excuse*, if you ask me…

In any case, we certainly utilized that *reason* to its max during the Christmas that just passed. We kicked off the eating marathon on Christmas eve itself. With a scrumptious Chinese course lunch at Starview in New World Park, everyone had a hearty meal and happy tummies could be seen everywhere!

One of my favorites from lunch: Peking Duck served in 2 ways: sandwiched between soft and fluffy mantous AND served in shredded salad form in pie-tees.

Baby abalones cooked to perfection, and served on a bed of broccoli:

And the prawn dish:

Ethan and Hannah got to meet up with their cousins, Jonathan and Phoebe. While the kids were packed with boundless energy and had fun running around, chasing each other inside and outside the restaurant, the adults had to take turns supervising them…which was a good thing too, as it certainly aided the process of food digestion and calorie burning…

Pretty gals in a row…

And just as the food from lunch was about to be completely digested, it was time for dinner. We had a simple gathering at Pete’s brother’s (Patrick’s) place, where the food was served buffet-style (kinda).

..and my chicken curry, which I’m a little sorry to say, was a tad too oily…

Then it was time to unveil the big bird we ordered from Victoria Station:

Yummy yummy…with lots of gravy! We kept the turkey leftovers to make turkey sandwiches, and up till today, there’s still some of that turkey in my fridge! I’m planning to enlist my Mum’s help to make kiam chye boey in a few days’ time

While the grown-ups had dinner, the kids busied themselves having fun with the toys…

And then the inevitable came…it was time to unwrap the presents:

Technically, it was still a day early, but the kids were all too impatient to bother…never mind, they’ll have another gift-unwrapping session on Christmas Day itself!

*****

On Christmas morning, we miraculously made in on time to church at 9a.m. Ordinarily, getting to church at 10a.m. was already a daunting task for us. It must have been a Christmas miracle!

Anyway, after church, we did a light breakfast at Kayu…yup, we had roti canai for breakfast! Haven’t done that in donkey years!

Waiting for our food to be served…

Doesn’t Hannah look adorable in a girly-girl dress?

Okay, Ethan…you look adorable too!

After breakfast, we resumed our gift-unwrapping session, this time at a different venue… OUR HOME!!

We gave Ethan and Hannah each a toy car garage set. Very very cool…and yes, it will definitely take up more space in our humble home, but at least they won’t fight over it…(well that’s what we think.. :P)

We took the kids for a vacation in KL the weekend before Christmas. It was just a little something we planned for the school holidays, and although we knew it was going to be quite tiring, it would be worth the while because the kids would surely enjoy themselves.

As usual, we had our fair share of “tummy-stuffing” (like a prelude to what’s to come for Christmas)…this was the steamboat pot that every table was provided with when we had buffet lunch at Shogun at 1-Utama.

After Ethan had had his lunch, he began to tap into his Top Chef skills…

A *yummy* creation made with his own two hands? Amazing what he could create with the remnants of the cheesecake…

Hannah, despite her young age, also thoroughly enjoyed herself … and made a PERFECT mess too! Hopefully we won’t be banned from the restaurant after this…

Had to give her a change of clothes too, after she spilled the grape juice all over herself! Here she is, checking to see if there’s anything left to eat on the table:

Hannah with Daddy…

Hannah with Kor Kor…

Ethan too busy being Top Chef, remember? 😛

Anyway, after that we walked off the meal by strolling around the mall. The kids *insisted* on riding on these *animals*…

A kid-sized doggie for Ethan…

And a small toddler-sized elephant for Hannah…

Daddy wanted in on the fun too:

After a whole day of fun, Hannah was totally knocked out by dinnertime!